Back in February, Beyoncé announced that she and hubby Jay Z were expecting twins. The image she shared on Instagram quickly became the platforms most liked post and everyone scrambled to find out more about the photographer behind the shoot.
Awol Erizku, the 28-year-old artist with an M.F.A. from Yale, says working with Bey was “bigger than getting into the Whitney in a lot of ways.”
In an interview with The New York Times, he doesn’t reveal much about the famous photoshoot, due to a non-disclosure agreement, but says working with the “Formation” singer was a collaboration. “Beyoncé didn’t say, ‘Hey, this is what I want; do this.’ She was inspired by the things I had done and wanted to do something with me.”
Now, Erizku is tackling other projects. There’s a show in Brussels, “Purple Reign,” inspired by Future’s mixtape, and an anti-Trump art show in London called “Make America Great Again.”
Some of the work for Erizku’s anti-Trump art show also features the image of a black panther, which the artist took straight from the Black Panther Party logo. “I’m putting it out there because I’m black and I’m Muslim and this is everything Trump has tried to stand against. I don’t think this show is anti-American, but it is definitely anti-Trump. All the people he’s hating on do make America great.”
Of his work Erizku adds, “I wanted to be an artist so I could bring more people who looked like me, my mother and my sisters, into history.”
